“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Don’t be so heartless~”

Zhe rose, calm as a dark tide. He brushed his wide black robe, smile sharpening like a crescent blade, his aura tilting toward madness.

“I said already, let me refu—”

“What if I let you witness a god’s power?”

The words hit like ice water. Aphelia swallowed the rest. A god’s power? Impossible. If mortals held that, then...

She didn’t dare chase the thought. Yet the forbidden apple gleamed in every corner of her mind. As a new Titleholder, she’d tasted a power above the dust. Tell her there’s more, and saying she didn’t want it would be a lie.

Zhe saw the flicker and knew he had her. He hummed an unplaceable tune, smug as a cat. Then he tapped the stone table in a strange rhythm—no Arcane Power, just bare hands.

The table sank with a stone gasp. Gears gnawed below, a cavernous grind. The flower pond roiled like a cauldron at full boil, yet not a drop splashed. The water hung tight, bound by an unseen net.

The rockery split like a cracked shell. A blatant machine lay within, spinning at a furious clip. She didn’t know gears, but her sense for Arcane Power was a hunting hawk—this spin was feeding power into the air.

How... a machine that generates Arcane Power without a spell-array? No infusion, no Mana Crystals. Pure mechanisms. How could that birth Arcane Power?

Aphelia pressed a lid on her shock. Let the mad youth show his next blasphemy. She would watch.

The gears sped up, teeth shrieking like metal locusts. The roar filled the small courtyard, and even Aphelia’s brows tightened like a bowstring.

Steam peeled away as the pond sank. The pond’s belly opened, two people wide, flanked by arrays that smelled of danger like cold iron in the rain.

Zhe strode in as if to a market, not a crypt. He even tossed her a look over his shoulder, a spark of mockery.

You dare?

Aphelia snorted, Arcane Power gathering like stormclouds. She followed. She hated cheap taunts, but she wasn’t fool enough to drop her guard for pride.

Behind them, the stone sang again. The table rose to its old place. Water poured back as if rewinding time. The rockery knitted itself whole. The fallen chips dispersed like mist at dawn. It was as if nothing had happened.

Tea on the table still steamed. No footprints, no shadows. Rockery, pond, calm courtyard—untouched.

“So this is your magitech. I have to say, it’s breathtaking.”

She ran a hand along an ordinary stone wall, gaze slipping beneath the skin. To a common eye, just stone. To her, a hive of array fragments tucked into ribs and veins of rock. One touch, and those scattered bones would knit into several attack and defense arrays, all firing at once.

Far better than those idiot traps that chug out arrays step by step. So the East had crept this far without anyone noticing?

A chill slid down her spine. Thank the heavens that, when the Demon King invaded, Yi was out there persuading on the Eastern Continent. If the East had pointed their spears at the West then, the West would already be ash.

“This already shocks you? When I show you a miracle, you’ll bawl in gratitude.”

Zhe’s scorn came easy, like flicking dust from a sleeve. Aphelia’s temper flared like a struck match, then died. The craft here was exquisite. With that as a preface, his talk of divine power pulled her like a tide.

Up on the surface, Nero and the others were under treatment. Jasmine, the lightest wound, had already recovered. She stood guard at the door, an old spear cradled to her chest like a sleeping wolf.

“Come on, Jasmine, why so uptight? Let me see that spear~ It won’t bite.”

The middle-aged man on the bed spoke lazily, but his eyes ticked like precision gears, sneaking glances at the curvy lady tending Nero. Graceful, focused—he ogled without shame.

Jasmine cut him a flat look, then turned away with a huff. She scrubbed at her eyes as if wiping off dirt.

“Wow, Jasmine, that’s harsh. You—”

“Enough, old man. Give it a rest. Backlash from a barrier isn’t a paper cut.”

Nero thanked the nurse with a nod, then sighed at the man.

“It’s fine. I’ve got this.”

The man flicked his pocket watch on its chain. It spun, caught, settled in his palm. A rueful smile creased his face.

“I can’t even die if I want to.”

Nero exhaled, no more advice left. The man laughed, like he’d expected that. He shrugged into the clothes on the stand, drew the curtain, and emerged looking every inch the store’s gentleman. Silent, he could’ve swept a thousand hearts.

“I’ve got to watch the shop. If the public ‘Sentinel’ vanishes, your brothers will start getting ideas.”

He slid the curtain aside and was already striding out. He tossed one last playful line over his shoulder.

“This is our last all-in. You can’t be too careful. Right, Jasmine~?”

The door shut. Two soft sighs followed, crossing in the quiet. Nero’s mood knotted like a mess of strings. Truth be told, he felt royally screwed.

“Jasmine, that spear... you plan to give it to Aphelia, don’t you?”

He eyed the timeworn shaft. Could that really be a Titleholder’s weapon? Take it outside and you might not even poke through a coat.

Jasmine nodded, small and silent. She didn’t want to speak, or didn’t know where to start. The strain on her face made Nero scratch for words and come up empty.

Even as allies, anything touching a Titleholder is family-deep. You don’t air that laundry.

“If it’s hard to answer—”

“There’s nothing I can tell you. We wait for Aphelia. Only then will we have an answer.”

Jasmine shook her head, irritation rippling. Too many forces knotted into recent events. Too little known about Aphelia. Only one thing was certain: Aphelia had received that person’s strongest legacy.

Nero let it drop. Some lines you don’t cross. And Aphelia would be under him for a long stretch. She’d understand.

The woman on both their minds stood now at the rim of an arena the size of a stadium, breath steady as a metronome, heart a drum in a storm. Her Arcane Power-forged arm had melted into the air.

Two figures had gone through the hidden tunnel into this exaggerated arena. Zhe had told her to attack without restraint.

Aphelia never held back. She opened with near-Titleholder firepower, a bombardment laced with little gifts. Without equal strength, you’d be a smoking ruin.

Zhe took it like rain on stone, then dusted his robe and shook his head.

She closed, storm-swift, a gale of strikes. She threaded in flashes of Ancient Martial Flow. He unraveled each one, clean as silk off a loom, then returned it double. Her Arcane Power right arm shattered under the backlash.

From start to finish, all the Ancient Martial Flow he used was the Piercing Palm.

This was a god’s power? Everything stacked above a Titleholder—reaction like lightning, speed like wind, strength like a falling mountain.

If she still dared hold back, she wouldn’t be the Undying Aphelia.

Her loose circulation snapped taut. The lineage breath of the Ancient Martial Flow locked with her Arcane Power, weaving a tight spiral. Zhe shook his head.

“Still won’t learn? Ancient Martial Flow won’t touch me.”

He vanished. Aphelia could barely trace his shadow, but she didn’t try. She didn’t need to.

“Ancient Martial Flow—”

“Ancient Martial Flow—”

A thunderbolt of a palm tore in from behind, faster than her heartbeat, straight for the vital point between her shoulders.

Zhe’s eyes burned with battle lust. His world shrank to one strike. No thought of demonstrations. No mercy.

“Ephemeral Bloom!!”

Time froze like frost on glass. His palm stopped a hair’s breadth from her back. Aphelia flattened her hand into a blade. Arcane Power surged like a river through a gorge. She spun and cut for his outstretched arm without hesitation.